Disk hogs? - SUN

This is a discussion on Disk hogs? - SUN ; So I'm rooting around the system disk (Solaris 8) trying
to find out why the / slice is 94% full and looking for any
fat that can be trimmed out. In the /dev directory I find
three files that are ...

Disk hogs?

So I'm rooting around the system disk (Solaris 8) trying
to find out why the / slice is 94% full and looking for any
fat that can be trimmed out. In the /dev directory I find
three files that are regular files (not links, or directories),
when I 'ls -l' I get:

Two possibilities come to mind. First, that I mistyped a
dump command and instead of dumping to /dev/rmt/0n or
/dev/rmt/0c, I got /dev/0n and /dev/rmt0c. I don't know
what to say about rst0. Second possibility is that some
other process wrote these files and that they're not there
by accident. Since it looks like just about every file in /dev
is either a link, a directory (full of links) or a character
device (tty devices, I think), I suspect at least the first
two files are goofs.

Those of you who know Solaris is your sense that these are
mistakes or is it possible/likely that these monstrosities
are here by design? My plan, by the way, is to move these files
to another disk and see if there's any complaining. If there
is, I'll move the files back, if not, off to the bit bucket they
go.

TIA,
eric

Re: Disk hogs?

Eric wrote:
> So I'm rooting around the system disk (Solaris 8) trying
> to find out why the / slice is 94% full and looking for any
> fat that can be trimmed out. In the /dev directory I find
> three files that are regular files (not links, or directories),
> when I 'ls -l' I get:
>
> ls -l /dev/0n /dev/rmt0c /dev/rst0
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root other 54361088 Nov 15 2000 /dev/0n
> -rw------- 1 root other 315449344 Jul 25 2002 /dev/rmt0c
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root other 1024 Feb 14 2001 rst0
>
> Two possibilities come to mind. First, that I mistyped a
> dump command and instead of dumping to /dev/rmt/0n or
> /dev/rmt/0c, I got /dev/0n and /dev/rmt0c. I don't know
> what to say about rst0. Second possibility is that some
> other process wrote these files and that they're not there
> by accident. Since it looks like just about every file in /dev
> is either a link, a directory (full of links) or a character
> device (tty devices, I think), I suspect at least the first
> two files are goofs.
>
> Those of you who know Solaris is your sense that these are
> mistakes or is it possible/likely that these monstrosities
> are here by design? My plan, by the way, is to move these files
> to another disk and see if there's any complaining. If there
> is, I'll move the files back, if not, off to the bit bucket they
> go.
>
> TIA,
> eric

Before doing anything drastic, I'd use "file" to find out what sort of
files these are.

Re: Disk hogs?

In article ,
Michael Vilain wrote:
> In article ,
> Eric wrote:
>
> > So I'm rooting around the system disk (Solaris 8) trying
> > to find out why the / slice is 94% full and looking for any
> > fat that can be trimmed out. In the /dev directory I find
> > three files that are regular files (not links, or directories),
> > when I 'ls -l' I get:
> >
> > ls -l /dev/0n /dev/rmt0c /dev/rst0
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root other 54361088 Nov 15 2000 /dev/0n
> > -rw------- 1 root other 315449344 Jul 25 2002 /dev/rmt0c
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root other 1024 Feb 14 2001 rst0
> >
> > Two possibilities come to mind. First, that I mistyped a
> > dump command and instead of dumping to /dev/rmt/0n or
> > /dev/rmt/0c, I got /dev/0n and /dev/rmt0c. I don't know
> > what to say about rst0. Second possibility is that some
> > other process wrote these files and that they're not there
> > by accident. Since it looks like just about every file in /dev
> > is either a link, a directory (full of links) or a character
> > device (tty devices, I think), I suspect at least the first
> > two files are goofs.
> >
> > Those of you who know Solaris is your sense that these are
> > mistakes or is it possible/likely that these monstrosities
> > are here by design? My plan, by the way, is to move these files
> > to another disk and see if there's any complaining. If there
> > is, I'll move the files back, if not, off to the bit bucket they
> > go.
> >
> > TIA,
> > eric
>
> This is _classic_ and you've hit the probably cause right on the head.
> What does the file utility say these files are? My guess is they're
> data not a device.

File, sweet. I didn't know about that one, thanks. It says
On is a "USTAR tar archive" and rmt0c is a "ufsdump tar archive".

Re: Disk hogs?

In article ,
"Richard B. Gilbert" wrote:
> Eric wrote:
>
> > So I'm rooting around the system disk (Solaris 8) trying
> > to find out why the / slice is 94% full and looking for any
> > fat that can be trimmed out. In the /dev directory I find
> > three files that are regular files (not links, or directories),
> > when I 'ls -l' I get:
> >
> > ls -l /dev/0n /dev/rmt0c /dev/rst0
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root other 54361088 Nov 15 2000 /dev/0n
> > -rw------- 1 root other 315449344 Jul 25 2002 /dev/rmt0c
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root other 1024 Feb 14 2001 rst0
> >
> > Two possibilities come to mind. First, that I mistyped a
> > dump command and instead of dumping to /dev/rmt/0n or
> > /dev/rmt/0c, I got /dev/0n and /dev/rmt0c. I don't know
> > what to say about rst0. Second possibility is that some
> > other process wrote these files and that they're not there
> > by accident. Since it looks like just about every file in /dev
> > is either a link, a directory (full of links) or a character
> > device (tty devices, I think), I suspect at least the first
> > two files are goofs.
> >
> > Those of you who know Solaris is your sense that these are
> > mistakes or is it possible/likely that these monstrosities
> > are here by design? My plan, by the way, is to move these files
> > to another disk and see if there's any complaining. If there
> > is, I'll move the files back, if not, off to the bit bucket they
> > go.
> >
> > TIA,
> > eric
>
> Before doing anything drastic, I'd use "file" to find out what sort of
> files these are.

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about "file". It says the
first two are tar archives of one sort or another. The
last one it's calling "English text" or some such.

Re: Disk hogs?

Eric Inazaki wrote:
> In article ,
> "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote:
>
>
>>Eric wrote:
>>
>>
>>>So I'm rooting around the system disk (Solaris 8) trying
>>>to find out why the / slice is 94% full and looking for any
>>>fat that can be trimmed out. In the /dev directory I find
>>>three files that are regular files (not links, or directories),
>>>when I 'ls -l' I get:
>>>
>>>ls -l /dev/0n /dev/rmt0c /dev/rst0
>>>-rw-r--r-- 1 root other 54361088 Nov 15 2000 /dev/0n
>>>-rw------- 1 root other 315449344 Jul 25 2002 /dev/rmt0c
>>>-rw-r--r-- 1 root other 1024 Feb 14 2001 rst0
>>>
>>>Two possibilities come to mind. First, that I mistyped a
>>>dump command and instead of dumping to /dev/rmt/0n or
>>>/dev/rmt/0c, I got /dev/0n and /dev/rmt0c. I don't know
>>>what to say about rst0. Second possibility is that some
>>>other process wrote these files and that they're not there
>>>by accident. Since it looks like just about every file in /dev
>>>is either a link, a directory (full of links) or a character
>>>device (tty devices, I think), I suspect at least the first
>>>two files are goofs.
>>>
>>>Those of you who know Solaris is your sense that these are
>>>mistakes or is it possible/likely that these monstrosities
>>>are here by design? My plan, by the way, is to move these files
>>>to another disk and see if there's any complaining. If there
>>>is, I'll move the files back, if not, off to the bit bucket they
>>>go.
>>>
>>>TIA,
>>>eric
>>
>>Before doing anything drastic, I'd use "file" to find out what sort of
>>files these are.
>
>
> Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about "file". It says the
> first two are tar archives of one sort or another. The
> last one it's calling "English text" or some such.

"English text" says that the file should be "people readable". "more"
should tell you all you need to know about it.

The other two you can probably just remove or, to be conservative, move
them somewhere relatively harmless for a while before removing them
completely.